Used to be, Saturday and Sunday were prime moviegoing time for me -- before I started attending press screenings, I'd spend half the weekend at the multiplex, catching all the new flicks. Nowadays, weekends are a few days of respite from the screening schedule. Not in December, though: there are simply too many movies opening for anyone to take a break. So I'll catch (I hope) three films between Friday and Sunday as my December movie madness continues. Here's what I'll see, and what I hope -- and fear -- for them:

The History Boys: Not a press screening -- I missed those, so I'll pop into a multiplex for this one on Friday. I know next to nothing about this beyond the fact that it's based on a play, and that Harry Potter's uncle is in it. Boys'-school movies can be hit or miss: I loved, loved, loved Dead Poet's Society, but I hated, hated, hated The Emperor's Club. I bet this one falls somewhere in the middle: I'll like but not love it, not hate it. It's been that kind of movie year -- there's been a lot of middling films that make you shrug and go, "Eh."

Charlotte's Web: Kids movies do often get screened on a weekend morning, so that critics can bring their families along. I don't have kids and hate mornings, so Saturday before noon is always a trial for me. But I suspect this one will be worth dragging myself out of bed for, if only because of the cute pig. (I caught a TV ad for this one the other day, and at first I thought it was an ad for Babe, for an upcoming showing of that film on TV.) Who doesn't like cute baby porkers? That'll do, pig. That'll do.

Letters from Iwo Jima: Clint Eastwood's bookend to his Flags of Our Fathers was originally supposed to be released early next year, but Warner Bros. bumped it into December because, I suspect, Flags wasn't getting the Oscar buzz they were hoping it would. And whaddaya know? The old farts at the National Board of Review have just named Iwo Jima the best film of 2006 ... and the fact that they also have the tepid Flags, which I found crass and calculated, on their best-of list doesn't make me hopeful for Iwo Jima. I can't say I'm dreading seeing this one on Sunday -- if I can get into the press screening -- but I'm not exactly hopeful, now, either.

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